Monday, May 30, 2011

Memorial Day- Adventure....

John's wife is here for the weekend and there is a multiplex movie theatre down the road. After my matinee yesterday the three of us decided to see a film. I needed the break because John said in his show report: "Watching Jay perform this afternoon was like watching Sisyphus struggling to roll the bolder up a hill only to realize that the audience was not on the other side." They were tough to say the least, a beautiful Sunday on a holiday weekend is not helpful to a visiting thespian. I am still trying to figure out this audience. Sometimes they are club like and sometimes they are theatre like. Just when I expect them to be one or the other they change.The film we went to see was Annjeanette's choice, "Bridesmaids". I was thinking it would be just the female version of "The Hangover" part one... it was not. It is after all a chick flick with a few gross laughs that belong in a teen film. But it was a great distraction.My friend Jimmy Brogan plays the preacher in the final scene. I wrote him a note to say I saw him. These events were probably the reason for my vivid dream later that night. In the dream I was headed back stage to see Jimmy after the performance, which, in my slumber, was a stage show in New York, not a movie. Only I couldn't go back stage I had to go across NYC to an office building and wait in a reception room and congratulate Jimmy in his office.I had my ipad and my briefcase and a large wool overcoat that I did not need for the weather but had to lug around anyway. On the walk through NYC I stumbled upon a new Ipod and expensive headset with several patch cords splayed in a grassy median. I knew it would not stay on the street long so I took it. I am not sure if I took it to look for the owner, or I just snagged it for my own. Dreams and morals are not always playmates.It was difficult to hold my briefcase, the ipad, the heavy wool overcoat and the extra electronics so the journey to the building became a chore. Jimmy's office was on the second floor, but the elevators were dedicated to specific routes and I got on the wrong one several times, trying all the while to keep an arm full of electronics and wardrobe under my control. When I finally got to the office there were lots of people waiting to see Jimmy, so I sat down in the waiting room and tossed my load of possessions on an empty chair. Also in the waiting room was a producer from my Broadway show. I recognized him but he had not seen me yet. I did not want to talk to him or even see him so I tried to hide my face. Next to me on the side table was a copy of Daily Variety. Lying on the spread out paper were two very young kittens both on their backs very unhappy and flailing about with their tiny legs. Like turtles trying to right themselves they seemed to be miserable in that position. The longer I watched them the more I felt sorry for them. I finally turned them over feet down and they bolted like cockroaches in the light. It was so fast that I didn't even know what happened. The kittens begin running wildly all over the waiting area disturbing everyone. I see that Jimmy is still swamped with admirers and the waiting room is chaos. The person next to me says that the kittens belong to my producer and he had placed them on their backs specifically so they would not run wild and go crazy in the office.I feared he would find out that I had set the cats free and it would not only mean a conversation with him but a heated argument as well. I sneaked out of the office and took the stairs down to the street. I was glad to have avoided a scene. Time passed as I got caught up in the "performance" that is NYC street life. It dawned on me that I didn't have my coat, ipad, briefcase or newly acquired ipod. I left them in the office in my haste to get away.I forgot what the building looks like and never really knew the address, but enter a building that I believe is the one and head to the second floor. This time the elevators are a complete puzzle and I can not seem to figure out which one will go to the second floor. One bank of elevators goes to odd floors, the other to even...but starting a the eighth. Some elevators say local, some express and others have signage in a language I don't speak. I find a security guard who is rude and not helpful but as I explain that I left my property in the Brogan office he says' "That office was closed hours ago. It seems that they had a strange feline infestation and everyone had to evacuate." If I had property that was in there, I should try the lost and found. Off course it became an adventure to find the lost and found through a maze of hallways, malls, subway tunnels, cross walks and deli's to find the lost and found. I began to think that lost and found were the actual directions to the place. It was manned or woman-ed, to be more precise, by a over weight security guard. I was relieved to see my coat but this was only lost and found clothing. I explained to the large lady that what I was really after was my ipad. She reluctantly directed me through another maze to the "other things lost and found". At a kiosk in another room was a six foot tall pile of black breifcases so similar too mine that I had to dig through hundreds to finally find my own. The only problem was... it was empty... nothing was inside. "Of course," they explained, "everything had been taken out and placed with all other similar objects that were lost." The patch cords were in one pile, the ipads in another, pencils and pens in still another pile. Papers seemed to fill the rest of the space in the room. It was an impossible task.I realize quickly that a cord is a cord and a pen is a pen so I just grabbed the first ones that were at all similar to mine. The ipad was a different story... I had to turn on several to find my artwork and identify it as my own. When it came to the pilfered ipod, it was a distinctive red color and there was only one of them in the pile. I grabbed it. The security guard says, "Is that really your ipod?" as if she knew of my crime. I was torn between two responses, and felt bad that I actually heard myself say, "Yes." All hell breaks loose as sirens go off and guards steady their guns. It seems that some witness stated that the guy who let the cats go in the Brogan office left that distinctive Ipod behind. I woke as I was running from a posse of "rent-a-cops". Now... what are the lessons I learned from this fantasy adventure? Next time leave that heavy wool overcoat at home.As you were,Jay